Bollore managing director Koen Rombouts’ out-of-the-box thinking has raised over R60 000 for the Rays of Hope Foundation’s #Hope4Alex initiative.
The idea for the half marathon came from Rombouts’ children, who had the idea to have a boot camp in the garden during the lockdown. “I enjoyed that very much and after a few days, we started running more and more rounds, adding some parts to the running track,” he said.
As the boot camp faded away, more of the family began to walk and run. Once the lockdown was extended, Rombouts decided to take it a step further and challenge himself with the idea of a 21km half marathon. Rombouts completed the half marathon on 26 April and his run was streamed online for viewers to tune in and make their donations from across the world.
He added that while the half marathon was not easy, the live stream, among other things, motivated him to keep going.
“I had a difficult moment, mentally around the 15km mark; luckily my family just decided to come and cheer me on and that got me over it. The last few kilometres were also hard but by then I knew that so many people were cheering me on the live stream so that really kept me going,” he added.
Rombouts heard about the Rays of Hope #Hope4Alex initiative through his wife, Ingrid, who mentors two girls in Alexandra as part of the Sizanani Mentorship Programme. The programme helps high school learners from Alexandra to succeed in their studies and gain access to universities through the provision of mentors, career information and bursaries.
The #Hope4Alex initiative was started by the Hurlingham-based foundation in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to place the country under total lockdown. This meant that many households were in need of support and food.”
Rays of Hope has been doing amazing work in Alexandra by recognising from the start of the lockdown that many families would really suffer and acted on that immediately by starting with the food hampers,” he said.
By 29 April, the foundation had provided over 25 000 vulnerable people with food parcels in the Alexandra community.
Visit: www.raysofhope.co.za/hope4alex
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